Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi have been sentenced to 14 years in jail in a case related to the illegal sale of state gifts.
An accountability court in Rawalpindi, which deals with corruption cases, on January 31 also ruled that the couple would be ineligible to contest for public office for 10 years while also slapping a fine of 787 million rupees ($2.8 million) on each of them.
The sentencing came a day after Khan was given a 10-year prison term for revealing state secrets. It was unclear whether the sentences are to run consecutively or concurrently.
Pakistani political analyst Cyril Almeida said Khan’s conviction is a message from the powerful military to the people before the vote next week. While no prime minister in Pakistan’s history has completed their tenure, three of four military dictators ruled for nearly a decade each.
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